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Sunset at Jekyll Island, Ga. -- Labor Day No luck, but lots of trying with fishing at Jekyll Island, Ga. -- Labor Day Me at Jekyll Island, Ga. -- Labor Day The Orr Park Hoodlums Reunion III, August 16, Montevallo, Ala. Old school bike representation, Orr Park Hoodlums reunion Beautiful sunset on 14th Ave. S Brevard, NC

Me and my grandparents, 1973, Sea Island, Ga. Mimi and I making biscuits, 1975, Lyme, New Hampshire. She took care of me for a week or two when my sister was born. Did my smock not rock? My grandparents at our first house in Auburn, 1978. Four generations: Mimi, my Aunt Claudia, cousin Laura and her three children, Ryan, Kaitlyn and Evan, 2005. This was taken on a super hot August day in EdwinWarner Park in Nashville (hence a couple of unhappy kiddos). Today my sole grandparent turns 86. She will never read this blog entry or any words that appear on a computer screen, but that's okay. She doesn't like a lot of attention or sentiment anyway. That's just Mimi. My grandmother was born Elizabeth Ann, known as Betty, in 1922 in Dearborn, Michigan. She was the first born to a Swedish immigrant named John Eric Noreen and his French Canadian wife Isabelle Elizabeth Chartier. Mimi's father worked for one the Big Four auto companies. My mother's and my first name are also El

Last weekend my sister and I went to Atlanta, a trip briefly mentioned in my last post, to see our friends Tim and Angela and their two tiny girls. Last time Lindsay and I laid eyes on Audrey Rose was two years ago and I guess there's no need to point out that the difference between the age one and three is as vast as the Mojave. While there have been major changes in my life as well in this time period, Audrey has gone from a somewhat bald just-walking baby to a fully functioning member of kid society with thoughts, opinions, preferences (for many things ultra girlie) and of course many many questions that all start with "Why?" A baby no more, Audrey is the spitting image of her mama with an intense curiosity about the workings of the world like her papa. She's a proud big sister to seven-week-old Harper Jane and loved having ladies day out with me, Angela and Lindsay on Monday. I feel slightly guilty by not showing more appreciation for newborn Harper on this post,

How the mother of a toddler and a newborn can rock multitasking to this level is astonishing to me. The quality of her photography just gets better with each passing snap. Angela Georges (known simply by her maiden name of Waddy to myself and Linds) photography can been seen here on Flickr and here at her official professional site. She did the photography for my sister's wedding and couldn't be more highly endorsed to anyone looking for an extremely talented and hard-working freelancer in the Atlanta area. Here are some of her photos from our visit last weekend.

It's been a July full of travels and busyness which has made the month fly by and that's okay seeing as we're in the thick of the dog days. My A/C runs non-stop, the power bill is too high and being outside during the day is not recommended for "sensitive" groups such as myself -- referring to my asthma here and not my keen life-long ability to get my feelings hurt quickly. Yeah, I'm ready for fall to get here. We all are in the deep South. The month started out with an excellent fireworks show on Red Mountain that I saw from the News parking deck with some friends and co-workers. I worked that night and wasn't really in the photographing spirit, but Jeff Roberts at the News got some good snaps. The next week Clare and I went to Joe Wheeler State Park in north Alabama and caught some bream and me a decent-sized bass. Wheeler Lake is beautiful -- 87 miles long and full of huge fish. The last night I stayed up until 3:30 a.m. fishing, I saw an Alligator Gar

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency Thanks to Christina Tutor for the forward. I heart The Onion more than ever.

Acca/Dacca consisted of Birmingham youth rockers DaGoajes who transformed themselves into the pre-1980 AC/DC with a crazy look-alike lead singer. Their version of Angus Young , above, had a dry ice pack attached to his guitar at one time for some serious stage theatrics. I hope the late Bon Scott was smiling somewhere. This show was conceptualized by one of his cousins who lives in Birmingham and featured local bands: The Exhibit(s) Arkadelphia Bo Butler and Jody Nelson Plate Six Every Alice On Earth (my peeps) Acca / Dacca The Dirty Lungs Through the Sparks 13 Ghosts Official poster I did for the show Simple little web-only flier I did for my band in honor of 1970s and '80s bored-as-hell high school kids everywhere. I was definitely one of them. My photos of the show can be seen here. J. Purvis's photos of the show reside here.

It turns out that one video clip I took at City Stages didn't completely suck so here it is. This is the end of the The Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize," which is one of the my favorites. Regardless of its quality, it still doesn't hold a birthday candle to how great this show was in person. I didn't have a tripod and I'm no videographer so bear with me. Between April's Shelby Lynne show, The Flaming Lips and Tom Waits, I see no need to ever think this city doesn't exist on the map of excellent live music ... so there!

Here's all a crappy cell phone camera could provide. I approached last night's concert not a huge fan of Tom Waits as many of my friends and sister are, but with appreciation for his talent and legend as a multi-faceted artist. It was two hours of pure amazement. The stage set-up was immaculately designed with Waits' son Casey to his right on percussion and the rest of the band, surrounding him in semi-circle and featuring a wide array of instrumentation included stand-up bass, mandolin, soprano and baritone sax, oboe and bass clarinet. Waits stood on a circular platform lined with what looked like antique circus lights and covered in a fine chalk-like powder that emitted a smoke like affect when he laid down his signature stomps. Friend and co-worker Mary Colurso summed it up much better in a review today in which she gave the show five out of five stars. I've seen just one other show that got such accolades this year if memory serves. Although not taken at the Alaba

The Dolly Parton tour bus from 1994. According to the dude working the place, there is a new bus in the works in Canada that will cost $2 million. This one cost $750,000 and gets seven miles to the gallon. Dolly's tour bus suite. Dolly's dressing room. I'm not even going to process how better equipped her bus is versus my current dwelling. Big scary fun swings that I could have stayed on for an hour or so. Last ride of the day on the Dollywood Express. I wonder if it hurts when a fudge knife cuts you. Does chocolate syrup come out? The most excellent part of Dollywood, the museum of all her costumes and memorabilia, didn't allow any photography and that was painful, but I rule I of course abided by. I don't think there are words to describe how star struck I was just seeing a beaded dress that I know took months to make by hand. There is an inner gay man in me and I'm not ashamed of that. One of Dolly's dress makers altered my sister's wedding dress

Photos by Jennifer Garland McGinty The show with Balthrop, Alabama was a good one with three very well-played performances, but the turnout was fairly crappy. I attribute that partially to the bar, which at one point smelled like vomit -- not sort of like vomit, exactly like vomit, allegedly due to microwave popcorn. The bartender says it always smells like that and everyone always complains. That to me is a great reason to continue to cook microwave popcorn, right, but such are the ways of the Upside Down Plaza -- a last resort as a venue for this show. Mike Kitchen had the quote of the night to the bartender, "Did someone throw up in your microwave?" Opening for us was Andrew Vladeck, a banjo player and one-man band with all sorts of pedals, foot percussion (a little stomp board with a mic on one foot and a tambourine on the other) and a harmonica. It was amazingly impressive. Our show went pretty well I thought vocally. Some jackass threw a lit cigarette at us after our fi

EAOE photo by Jonathan Purvis Tomorrow night , June 27, Every Alice on Earth , takes the stage, or floor space rather, at the Upside Plaza with Andrew Vladeck and Balthrop, Alabama . We will be the last act to play and the UDP is a notoriously late club -- typically the place people go after they're done with there first or second bars since the Plaza stays open so late. That being said, we have no way to predict what time we'll take the stage. We're hoping that Andrew will start by 9:30 or 10:00 p.m. which might put us on stage in the ballpark of 1:00 a.m., but that's pure speculation and no promises can be made. If you're coming out, be prepared for a worthy, but potentially late night show. Get you a nappy nap and hope to see you all there. Here are directions for those who need 'em. The other two acts are traveling here from NYC and here's a little background information on Balthrop, Alabama , whose lead singer

... were enjoying the chairs in Clare's new house that have a magical draw for cats. Even though there are two of these chairs in close proximity, I like that Maddy Lou and Gus chose to share one.

This year I had the honor of covering City Stages for The Birmingham News and it was one of the most hectic yet thrilling journalistic opportunities of my career. I saw many great shows, got a breaking news story on three kids who were asked to come sing on stage with a hot young indie act and in the end got to see The Flaming Lips while off the clock and hooked up with many members of my favorite girl gang. I reviewed Griffin House , Michael Franti and Spearhead, Elizabeth Cook with my breaking story at the Ingrid Michaelson show. Some of the biggest acts like Al Green, Diana Ross, Ben Harper and and Innocent Criminals and The Roots I didn't get to see sadly, but I was pleased with the less crowded smaller stages. To me they show the heart and soul of the festival and what makes all the sweat, overpriced food and stupid drunk people worth it. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story. (Although these reviews are credited to entertainment editor, Alec Harvey,

There's nothing in the world like the smell of fair food. It's intoxicating and hits the nostrils about 10 seconds from the gates. Ingrid Michaelson Ingrid Michaelson and light saber donated from a fan. This was one of the "gotta have" toys from the festival. Jessica Lamb, 15, left and Carly Putman, 15, both of Birmingham got to live out their own rock 'n' roll fantasy by getting to sing on stage with Ingrid Michaelson. Allie Moss, guitarist and singer with Ingrid Michaelson. Beautiful woman, beautiful guitar. Elizabeth Cook -- a sassy little thing from Nashville. I didn't think I would like her set, but when she played "Sometimes It Takes Balls to Be a Woman," and dedicated it to "all the women out there, even though it's Father's Day," she had an instant fan in me. Pieta Brown Mose Snyder, 2, and his mom Laurel drove from Atlanta to City Stages with their family. The crack cocaine of food Michael Franti and Spearhead Michael F